I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for the talent He has bestowed on all of us!
I have been artistic all of my life and love experimenting with different mediums and techniques. This blog is my creative outlet to share my passion for cardmaking and papercrafting!

To
celebrate his special day, we were able to take a spontaneuos trip trip to Skyline Drive (if you know us, spontaneity is not a common thing- lol!) and even though it
was cloudy with a bit of rain, we still thoroughly enjoyed the vistas and scenery.

We absolutely love the serenity of the park and were able to see a few deer- trust me, they blended in so well with the fallen leaves, we were lucky to see them at all :-) We were disappointed that we did not see any bears but they were either staying out of the drizzling rain or could already be hibernating :-)

This is a fairly simple
card to create:

Ink the deer image
from In The Meadow using Stāz-On® Jet Black Ink and stamp onto a piece of Whisper
White cardstock (also stamp another
image onto a piece of sticky note paper for a mask).

Mask the deer image
and stamp the mountains and tree with Stāz-On® Jet Black Ink.

Use an AquaPainter™
with Tip Top Taupe and Soft Suede Classic Ink to color the deer, Smoky Slate Classic
Ink for the mountains and Mossy Meadow Classic Ink for the grass, tree and
mountains.

Add additional detail
with Stampin’ Write Markers in the same colors and use the Sahara Sand marker
for shadows.

Use the Big Shot™
with the Circle Framelits™ to cut out the image and cut out another circle the
same size from Soft Suede cardstock, layering the cardstock circle behind the
focal image and set aside.

Color the
titmouse image using an AquaPainter™ with Smoky Slate and Hello Honey Classic
Ink (also using a Smoky Slate Stampin’ Write marker for shadows on the
feathers) and Pear Pizzazz with Old Olive for the leaves.

Once the
ink and paint has dried, mask the bird image and use a Sponge Dauber with Pear
Pizzazz Classic Ink to stencil the background.

Ink the
snowflakes from the Winter Blessings (SNSS) stamp set with Smoky Slate Classic
Ink, stamp off and stamp onto the background.

Use a 1 ¾”
Circle Punch to round the corners and a sewing machine with a zig zag stitch to
adhere the panel to a piece of Basic Gray cardstock (rounding the corners of
the Basic Gray cardstock as well and distressing with the Distress Tool).

Use the
Big Shot™ with the Boho Chic Textured Impressions™ Embossing Folder to emboss a
piece of retired Designer Series Paper, distress the edges with the Distressing
Tool and lightly sand with the Sanding Block.

Use a
zigzag stitch to adhere this background panel to the Basic Gray card front.

Stamp the
sentiment from We Three Kings (SNSS) onto Whisper White cardstock, create the
banner points with the Hexagon Punch and mount onto a piece of Basic Gray
cardstock.

***FYI- I stamped with the large tree and
house image from the set using Steel Gray Dye Ink (My Favorite Things ™) onto
the panel first, but by the time I added
all of the Distress Inks and Stain, embossed with the Woodgrain Textured
Impressions™ Embossing Folder and added the layers, you can only see the
shadows of the stamped image.***

Distress
the edges of the embossed background panel and use a sewing machine with a zig
zag stitch to adhere it to a piece of asic Black.

Distress
the edges of the Basic Black panel, add the Ivory Crochet Lace along with the
Dark Brown Satin Ribbon wrapping the edges behind the panel and mount onto a
Whisper White card base (sponging Tea Dye Distress Ink over the white edges to “antique”
the paper).

Card #2- View with Shimmer Paint

Mount
the focal image panel and clock to the card front using dimensional foam and
add the sentiment to finish off the card.

Card
#1 was finished at this point but I thought I needed to add one more thing so
Card #2 shows the same card with Frost White Shimmer Paint added to the
background and focal image panel.

Again, if you have not already visited the above challenge sites, I hope you will take a moment to do so- wonderful inspiration from all!

My husband and I love attending the Christmas Eve candlelight service each year and O Holy Night is one of our favorite Christmas hymns, so when I saw this new stamp at Our Daily Bread Designs, it was a "must-have" for me :-)

One of our “winter tradition” for the last few years has been to leave our little
Christmas tree up all year long...I know that may sound strange to some of you,
but we rarely have company over and a few years ago (after Christmas was over) we
found a pre-lit 6 ft. tree with a diameter of 36” (tall and narrow) for a
ridiculously low price of less than $7 (orig. close to $70) :-)

We had not put up a Christmas tree in years (our one “boy” kitty used to climb
our larger artificial tree and lay on the branches), so once we found this bargain tree, we decided to put the tree
up in a small corner of our living room (after Christmas) and decorated it with soft Boyd’s Bears ornaments
and smaller bears sitting in the branches. If our "girls" (kitties) were to climb it and knock it over, nothing would break- lol!

Our
living room has very poor lighting in the evening, so we liked the lights so much that around February, I suggested we may want to take the tree down but my hubby wanted to leave it up (this was two years ago) :-).

When
we had our larger tree each year, one of our other traditions would be that we
would shop for Christmas ornaments the week after Christmas (they are usually
50-70% off at that time- again, this is how we found the little bargain tree).

So in the past two years, our two “girls” have been very well behaved around
the little tree :-) Next
year, I am hoping that I can change up the decorations at Christmas and put my
beautiful fragile ornaments on the tree and truly decorate in style.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Since I do not own any of the traditional New Year's "celebration" type
stamps (at least not current ones), I decided to create a “sneak peek” card using
some of the new items from the upcoming Occasions Mini Catalog as well as the
2016 Sale-A-Bration Catalog.

I hope you will have a
chance to check out my sister Design Team member samples at the SU-Only
Challenge site as well as the fantastic Design Team samples at the Paper Craft
Crew site- wonderful inspiration from all!

To create this card:

Use the Big Shot™ with the new World Traveler Textured
Impressions™ Embossing Folder to emboss a piece of Sahara Sand cardstock
(inking the embossing folder with Sahara Sand Classic Ink before inserting the
cardstock and embossing).

Add the plane focal image with Stampin’ Dimensionals® to
finish off the card.

After I posted my first design (without the numbers to the SUO Challenges site), I decided to
cut some numbers with the retired GoGo Boots Sizzlits™ Alphabet Die Set and
added to the card front ...I think the numbers make it look more festive, don’t
you?

If you have not
visited the above sites yet, I encourage you to do so- the Design Team samples
at both challenge sites are wonderful as well as their gallery entries!

On another note, I
have been struggling with severe osteoarthritis for years and injured my right
shoulder months ago (when I lifted my Big Shot over my shoulder from behind
me-duh!!)...I re-injured the shoulder recently and typing puts a strain on the
muscle, so I will be blogging but with limited instructions... I hope you understand and thank those of you
who I know have been praying for me­ -you
are a blessing to me for sure!

Cut the image out
with the new ODBD Rectangle Dies , mount onto a rectangle cut from the ODBD
Double Stitched Rectangle Dies from Soft Suede cardstock and mount onto a trimmed piece of Mossy
Meadow cardstock.

Ink the mug and steam images from the
coordinating Pick Me Up stamp set (SNSS) using Early Espresso Classic Ink and stamp
onto the die cut pieces (I used my MISTI® Tool for alignment and repeated
stamping).

Ink the heart image using Cherry
Cobbler Classic Ink and stamp over the heart die cut.

Use the Big Shot™ with the My
Favorite Things™ (MFT) Stitched Rectangle Die to cut out a rectangle from Very
Vanilla cardstock.

Create a mask for the heart stencil
using the Sweetheart Punch, place the die cut rectangle and use a Sponge Dauber
to lightly sponge Soft Suede Classic Ink into the heart opening.

Stamp the sentiment from Pick Me Up
(SNSS) – fyi...I cut the sentiment apart to make it easier to line up plus now
I can use the sentiment in different layouts :-)

Add just a bit of splatter using a
small splatter stamp from Grunge Elements (SNSS) and Early Espresso Classic Ink.

Cut off the lower part of the
rectangle and layer the die cut panel onto a piece of Early Espresso cardstock.

Add the Ivory Crochet Lace to the
bottom of the die cut panel along with the 5/8” Darl Brown Satin Triple Ribbon
Bow (from my massive ribbon stash) and the brown button to the bow center with
Natural Linen Thread in the center.

Use a sewing machine with the zig zag
stitch to attach the retired Season of Style Designer Series Paper (DSP) to a piece
of Very Vanilla cardstock, mount onto the Early Espresso card base and add the
die cut sentiment panel to the card front using dimensional foam.

Finish off the card by adding the mug
of coffee with dimensional foam.

Again, if you have not already visited the
above sites, I hope you will take a moment to do so- wonderful inspiration from
all!

A few weeks ago in our Awana club, I taught a two-week lesson on the Names of Christ and Isaiah 9:6 is one of the verses we focused on for the lesson.

I just love this stamp and created Christmas cards for each of "my girls" using their favorite colors (in addition to the Elegant Eggplant, I also used Melon Mambo and Old Olive).These cards will accompany a coordinating Post-It® Note Holder along with a matching covered notebook as their Christmas gift this year (will share more of the project later this week) :-)

To create this CAS card:

Ink the Our Daily
Bread Designs (ODBD) The Mighty God stamp using Versamark™ and stamp onto a
piece of Whisper White cardstock, apply Stampin’ Emboss® Silver Embossing
Powder, heat set with the Heat Tool and once the image has cooled, carefully
cut around the frame.

Use the Big Shot™
along with the ODBD Layered Lacey Squares Die (largest square) and cut as well as emboss the die cut from Brushed Silver cardstock. Hand-cut
this square in half and adhere one half behind the focal image.

***FYI- I also cut a square of miscellaneous white cardstock to layer behind the embossed image and die so when this layer is added to the card front with dimensional foam, you would not be able to see shadows through the Whisper White cardstock :-) ****

Emboss a piece of Elegant
Eggplant cardstock using the Big Shot™ with the Boho Chic Textured Impressions™
Embossing Folder, trim and mount onto a piece of Brushed Silver cardstock.

Add the polka dot
embossed Whisper White panel to the Elegant Eggplant card base, add the Elegant
Eggplant embossed panel and mount the focal image with dimensional foam to
finish off the card.

About Me

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! As an independent Stampin' Up! demonstrator I am responsible for the content of this blog. It is not endorsed by Stampin' Up! Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright 2016 Stampin' Up! Also, unless otherwise noted, all of my designs are copyrighted by me and you are free to CASE (Copy and Share Everything) my designs for PERSONAL USE ONLY. PLEASE DO NOT COPY or CASE my designs for any challenge, contest, publication or for re-sale of any type. If you do decide to CASE my designs for personal use and publish that CASE anywhere on the internet, please give credit (link back to my blog) :-)

My Stampin' "Angel"

My Stampin' "Queenie"

2017-2018 Catalog

2017-2018 Catalog

My Paper Pumpkin- Join Now!

My Splitcoaststampers Gallery

Dirty Dozen Alumni

Cards for A Cause

FTC16CFR Part 255

In accordance with FTC16CFR, Part 255, I declare that I currently receive or have received products that I promote and endorse for free or at a discount from the following companies: Artistic Outpost, Our Daily Bread Designs and Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps. These companies have generously supplied me with complimentary products for promotional purposes while on their Design Teams. My enthusiasm in promoting their products does not stem from the fact that I am compensated by them, but because I love their products and feel their product lines and services to be superior in this industry.